


Thief in the Night

by Elsajeni



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: AU: Ori is Nori's kid, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Baby Ori, Brotherly Affection, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 03:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12718392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsajeni/pseuds/Elsajeni
Summary: “There’ll be folk looking for him — well, for me, but they’d be happy to find him as well. I’ve put it about that you won’t speak to me anymore, and I’ll lay a trail elsewhere as well, but all the same...”“It’s a dangerous favor you’re asking,” Dori finishes for him.Nori nods. “Last I’ll ever ask,” he says, and gives another momentary flash of a grin. “I swear it.”





	Thief in the Night

Dori knows who it is, of course, long before he gets to the door — there’s no one but Nori who’d be fool enough to come pounding at his door in the dead of night, and no reason for Nori to do so, either, except that he’s once again gotten himself into trouble and can’t get himself out. Under the circumstances, frankly, he feels it’s generous of him to answer the knock at all, and he can’t quite resist the urge to dawdle a little — pausing on the landing of the stairs to tie his robe _just_ so and check his braids in the mirror — before he crosses the last few steps to the entryway, takes a deep breath, and jerks the door open with a sharply-whispered, “Have you _any_ idea what time— _what is that_?”

“Just let me in,” Nori says in a low, urgent voice, glancing back over his shoulder, and Dori is so flummoxed by the sight of him — by the sight of what he’s _carrying_ — that he steps out of the way without arguing.

Nori doesn’t wait for him to entirely get out of the way, just slips in as soon as there’s enough of a gap for him to get through. As Dori’s closing the door behind him, he hurries to the window and twitches the curtain aside just a fraction of an inch to look back out at the street — positioning himself, Dori notices, so that his own body is between the swaddled bundle in his arms and any prying eyes outside — then darts across to the kitchen and checks that window as well, saying over his shoulder, “Are all the doors locked?”

“If they weren’t, you wouldn’t have had to knock,” Dori points out — though, as he’s saying it, he’s also double-checking the deadbolt; Nori is always a bit skittish, but this is unusually jumpy behavior even for him, and Dori is finding his obvious unease to be contagious. The deadbolt holds reassuringly firm, though, and he lets out a breath, then turns to see Nori making a circuit of the room, now apparently checking the latches on all the windows. “Nori— _Nori_ ,” he interrupts, managing to catch his brother by the sleeve as he passes by. “Hold still half a second, would you, and tell me what the hell is going on and _where that baby came from_.”

"He’s Sudri’s,” Nori answers sharply, pulling out of his grip; from the look in his eyes, Dori knows better than to ask any more questions, in particular those along the lines of _Sudri’s and whose?_ or _Then where in Mahal’s name is Sudri?_

“I don’t suppose you’ll be staying,” he says instead — because that, at least, is a safe bet.

“I won’t, no,” Nori agrees; there’s a strange hesitation in his voice, though, and somehow Dori isn’t surprised at all when he goes on, “But I think he’d better.”

Dori closes his eyes for a moment, then sighs, opens them again, and reaches out to take the (miraculously) still-dozing baby. “Well,” he says, looking down at its face. “Will he take after you, do you think?”

“Let’s hope not,” Nori says, with a quick, crooked smile; then he turns serious again and says, “There’ll be folk looking for him — well, for me, but they’d be happy to find him as well. I’ve put it about that you won’t speak to me anymore, and I’ll lay a trail elsewhere as well, but all the same...”

“It’s a dangerous favor you’re asking,” Dori finishes for him.

Nori nods. “Last I’ll ever ask,” he says, and gives another momentary flash of a grin. “I swear it. Just... look after each other, the pair of you.”

“We will,” Dori says, and then smiles down at the baby and adds, “Won’t we, little lad?”

When he looks up again, Nori is gone.

* * *

Dori shuts the door firmly and methodically begins to strip off the armor of his workday — first the scarf and mittens and heavy coat, for it’s bitter cold outside, and then the long apron, full of pins and removed very carefully. As he hangs his things on their pegs in the entryway, he can feel the warmth of the house beginning to seep into his bones and the cares of the day slowly fading away, the tension draining out of his neck and shoulders.

And then a voice — a very familiar voice — says from the parlor, “Long day, eh?” and suddenly his shoulders are back up around his ears.

“Getting longer by the minute,” he answers sharply — or starts to answer; he gets as far as _Gett-_ before turning around to see that Ori is in the room, sitting on his blanket on the floor and, _of course_ , watching raptly as Nori, without any apparent effort or concentration, makes a coin appear and disappear in his hands.

When he hasn’t come up with a good, less-snappish reply after a few moments, Nori chuckles, flips the coin up in a twinkling arc nearly to the ceiling, and as he catches it says solemnly to Ori, “Poor old Dori — he’s had such a bad day he can hardly speak. We ought to do something nice for him, oughtn’t we?”

“Nice!” Ori repeats — that’s Dori’s best guess at what he means to say, at least; he’s a clever wee thing, but hasn’t quite got the hang of speaking yet — and Nori nods and stands up, saying, “Right, then, we’re agreed. You go and fetch him, and show him to his chair.”

Dori rolls his eyes, stepping forward to scoop Ori up and make his own way along the worn path in the carpet to his usual seat. “Ignore him,” he tells the dwarfling in his arms as he settles, the comfort and familiarity of his chair somewhat easing the irritation of Nori’s unexpected appearance. “He’s only here to make trouble. I’ll bet right now he’s off to — here, where _are_ you off to?”

“Kitchen,” Nori calls back over his shoulder. “I’m going to make you a drink.”

“And a mess, I’m sure,” Dori grouses — but quietly, and when Ori frowns at him, he sighs and says, “All right, yes, I’m glad to see him really.”

“Nice,” Ori says again, firmly and rather more clearly this time, and Dori laughs — the last of the workday’s tension fading at last, the last irritable customer forgotten — and says, “I _am_ being nice! You’re very bossy for a baby, you know.”

“He comes by it honestly,” Nori shouts from the kitchen, and a few moments later he appears in the doorway, three mugs balanced in his hands. “Here we are, then — Ori, look, I made one just for you, not too hot. This is a very special drink, you know, lad.”

“It ought to be more special,” Dori says with a sigh, and accepts the mug Nori offers him, takes a long sip of the slightly-bitter chocolate. “If we were still in Erebor, Ori, we’d have spices to put in it, and all the sugar you could possibly want, and we’d never run short of—”

He cuts off there, and turns to glare at Nori. “I’m out of chocolate,” he says, a bit sharply. “I have been for weeks.”

“Good job I came home when I did, then,” Nori says cheerfully, perching on the arm of the chair and sipping from his own mug. “You get very unpleasant when you don’t have your chocolate on these winter nights.”

“Two years without a trace of you, and you turn back up with expensive gifts, and just when I’m running short—”

“I’ve missed my brother,” Nori says, all wounded innocence. “And my little lad. A fellow can’t spoil his kin?”

After a moment, when Dori doesn’t seem inclined to accept that as an explanation, he sighs, rolls his eyes theatrically, and adds, “I _did_ pay for it, you know. I even made Andvari give me a receipt.”

“Of course,” Dori says, leans back in his chair and casts a tired smile up at his brother. “I’m sorry. It was good of you to think of it.”

“’Course it was,” Nori says serenely, and gets a swat on the arm for his trouble. “Ow! Here, what sort of example d'you think you’re setting? Ori, listen, you absolutely mustn’t behave like this ungrateful old brute—”

“You absolutely mustn’t behave like this young hooligan—”

“‘ _Young_ hooligan,’ my word, I shall take that as a compliment—”

Sometime late that night, as they’re making up the spare bed, Dori stops for a moment, looks up and says, “I am glad to see you, you know.”

“'Course you are,” Nori answers, with a crooked smile, and then turns his attention back to getting the pillows just so.


End file.
